


but the strong will survive, another scar may bless you

by tommyshepherdd (atimeforflores)



Category: Young Avengers (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Child Soldiers, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-16
Updated: 2016-10-15
Packaged: 2018-08-22 16:31:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8292467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atimeforflores/pseuds/tommyshepherdd
Summary: Billy sees the white haired boy first. He isn’t there one moment, appearing with a cloud of dust in the next. There is a bandanna across his mouth, dark rimmed goggles successfully hiding the top of his face. He levels his gun straight at them, red dot fixing itself on Billy’s forehead.





	1. Chapter 1

They call them the Summer Soldiers. They’re a task force from the USA, a special squadron just to fit on the offensive. Their names first pop up during the Civil War. Never before had anything like them been seen. A team of just mutants, all young and fit. They prowled the country, searching for those who refused to comply with the registry.

  
Billy sees the white haired boy first. He isn’t there one moment, appearing with a cloud of dust in the next. There is a bandanna across his mouth, dark rimmed goggles successfully hiding the top of his face. He levels his gun straight at them, red dot fixing itself on Billy’s forehead.

  
But for some reason, he doesn’t pull the trigger. He stares at them, from behind those goggles. Something about him pulls at Billy’s memory. The boy’s gone in the next moment, nothing but Teddy’s shouts and Billy’s pounding heart left behind.

  
The second time Billy sees him, he’s back at the base, watching the footage of a raid that the Summer Soldiers had done on a high school. They found quite a few unregistered Xmen hiding in plain sight. The boy is still wearing the bandanna and goggles, the rest of his outfit also in a black material. Its form fitting, something that has to be adapted to his mutation.

  
Jonas wakes and looks at the boy, staring with unseeing eyes at the Summer Soldier. Billy mentions that he has to be the leader. Jonas says nothing. The room is heavy with a tension that Billy can’t seem to place.

  
There’s more footage of the Summer Soldiers in action, released. There’s them fighting in foreign countries, spilling blood by the US’s order.

  
At those times, Nate stares at the screen. His face is that of grief, of guilt. They had, somehow, gotten him to coexist with Kang. Billy still wasn’t sure how he had done it, just thought of the unfairness that was Nate having to become something he clearly hated. The universe stayed whole, Nate stayed whole. Nate stayed. Jonas was a being in and of himself, something that was a little bit of Nate, something a little bit of Vision. Vision, his dad. It all made Billy’s head hurt.

  
On the screen, the white haired Soldier was shot. He clutched at his own throat. It was a gruesome sight, since the footage had to be a few years old. The boy being so young, so small. The rest of the Summer Soldiers get him out of there, and soon after, the bandanna surfaces. The boy doesn’t bark orders anymore.

  
The third time he sees the white haired Soldier was when he was hugging his mom, a glimpse of the boys hair coming into his peripheral vision before the boy was gone again. Pietro had also disappeared, Billy absently noticed.

  
The fourth time Billy found the Summer Soldier, the boy was holding a wound shut, whimpering in pain. The boy dragged bloody fingers through the mess that was his leg. There was bone sticking out. Another Summer Soldier, the brunette girl, swooped down and grabbed him before Billy could make contact. Billy swore he felt the phantom ache of the boy’s pain.

  
The next time was the biggest surprise. Billy had come home from a night class at the local community college. He had set his keys down on his kitchen counter when he saw the dark figure sitting hunched over at his breakfast bar.

  
“Teddy?” He had called out at first, flipping the light on only to be startled by the figure suddenly being in front of him, holding his wrist in a painful grip.  
The goggles were gone, though the bandanna was still in place. The boy’s green eyes stared at Billy. He looked dead. The bags under his eyes were stark against the paleness of his skin.

  
Slowly, the boy let go of Billy’s wrist, hands going to the knot that kept the bandanna that covered his face. He took it off quickly, practically ripping it from his face. Billy stared at him. He stared at Billy.

  
“Please help me.” The boy finally croaked, the scar on his throat moving in a way that made Billy nauseous, “I am not a weapon. I am Tommy.”


	2. Chapter 2

Tommy was only eight when he realized he wasn’t like other kids. One night he had gone to bed, his mother trying to ween him of his habit of sucking on his thumb and his father reading him two bed time stories as a bribe, and the next morning he woke. Nothing was truly outwardly different. Nothing much, at least. Yet, as he peered in the mirror as he scrubbed diligently at his loose teeth he noticed it. Right above his right temple was a little group of white hair. Nothing extreme, but in that moment his life would change forever.  

He yelled for his father, watching the burly red haired man barrel into the tiny shared bathroom of the first floor. Tommy then tearfully proceeded to tell him that he was in fact dying and that they should bury him with his favorite stuffed bear, pointing at the strands as evidence. Frank wasn’t amused. Mary scheduled him an appointment with his pediatrician. 

It was in that little office that Tommy first learned that his parents weren’t actually his parents- they asked if anyone else in their family had this happen to them since it could be genetic and the truth came out. Well, they were, because they raised him, but they didn’t _have_ him. Except they had him? It was all very confusing. All he knew was that he came from somewhere else, but they wanted him so bad that they got him. Which was kind of nice. 

As he grew older, Tommy couldn’t help but want something else. It was lonely sometimes. Frank and Mary definitely weren’t getting any younger, if the way his mom’s bones ached with pain and her fingers shook gave proof. He had gotten used to cleaning tiny shards of glass off the unforgiving tile of kitchen with a soundtrack of his mother’s apologies and his father’s gruff noises of annoyance. There was a time that Frank had cleaned the glass up, but now he merely looked on with a look of disgust.

Finding out that he was adopted didn’t really change things. He just found himself looking closer at stranger’s faces, searching for something familiar. It quirked Frank to no end, his father’s large hand tightening to a painful strength when he got side tracked. 

Tommy entered high school quietly, making sure that he was under everyone’s radar. Somehow, however, he caught the eye of a few upper classmen. They were cool, popular even. And they wanted Tommy to hang out with them!

Frank didn’t like them. He said that they were trouble, and only using Tommy. That some guys on the force even thought that they were _muties_. If there was one thing that Frank hated more than anything, it was muties. 

If only Frank knew the truth.

Tommy started shaking half way through his freshman year. It hurt at times, and momentarily he thought that he might have what his mother had- before remembering that it wasn’t possible for him to inherit anything from her, except maybe her pessimistic attitude. 

It worsened when he got into his sophomore year. The only thing that made him feel like he could breathe again was when he was running. It seemed he was running a lot, away from his parents fighting, away from his failing grades, away from his friends. 

He ran to school every morning, one morning making it earlier than usual. It was strange how early he truly made it, but he didn’t want to think about it too hard. His father’s shouts from the night before still rattled around in his head. 

As he was walking to his locker, he noticed that one of the chemistry classrooms was open. He peeked his head in, not seeing a teacher. 

He made it to a desk before the pain came roaring back, feeling like his entire body was going to explode. 

“Hey, kid!” He was startled, whirling around on his heels. One of the janitors was standing in the doorway, staring at him suspiciously. “What are you doing in here.”

“S-sorry.” Tommy stuttered out through gritted teeth. He felt tears slip out of the corners of his eyes. The pain was unbearable.

“Kid?” The man asked, this time gentler. “You okay?”

He made a move, walking closer to Tommy, one hand outstretched.

“No!” Tommy shouted, vision going white for a moment. When he awoke, he was being pulled from the rubble of his school, his own father standing in his uniform at the edge.

Officially, he was an arsonist and a murderer. Unofficially, he was mutant scum, and no long a Shepherd.

Days in prison went by slowly. He was isolated at first, kept away from everyone as a precaution. After a few weeks the bed sheets looked pretty tempting. 

It was a few more weeks before he plead guilty, being shipped off to a juvie until he was 21. They’d reevaluate his circumstances then, they told him. His eyes were hollow as he stared at them, looking into the crowd of reporters for his parents. They did not show. 

He wasn’t even settled into his new cell at the juvie when another guard came and got him, dragging him by his shackles to a large room where about ten other teens stood. They all looked as confused as he felt.

“Alright!” A booming voice shouted, drawing their attention to a raised platform above their heads. A man in a military uniform stood there. “I am Agent Stryker and you are all the Summer Soldier Initiative.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pt 2 yo
> 
> follow my tumblr gaysupersoldiers.tumblr.com pls

**Author's Note:**

> so this is just a Summer Soldiers drop spot for drabbles from my tumblr
> 
> my tumblr is gaysupersoldiers.tumblr.com 
> 
> comments are greatly appreciated


End file.
